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by Phantasia11



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, HUGE spoilers for the game, I swear this has a happy ending, feeling lost, seriously don't read this if you haven't finished the third game, suicide implication, that tag is mostly for a very specific line I have no idea how to tag it as
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-20
Updated: 2020-11-20
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:07:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27646585
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phantasia11/pseuds/Phantasia11
Summary: After the end of the Killing School Semester, Shuichi Saihara returns to what they told him was his home.
Kudos: 11





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**Author's Note:**

> This was written some time ago, but I decided to post it here too. For a brief moment it was on my Tumblr before I deleted it. 
> 
> This was inspired by a Tumblr post by somebody who unfortunately deleted their blog, so I can't find the post anymore. Although I had sent this fanfic to them back then!
> 
> The original was mostly humorous, but it gave an interesting question "Imagine Shuichi Saihara returning to the home of his former self."

And there he was.

He had finally arrived.

Shuichi looked at the door in front of him: for how long had it stayed closed? For how long was he away from home?

His brow furrowed: home?

Was that... his home?

Was it _still_ his home?

The door to his apartment was still shut. Shuichi had to ask for indications on which apartment was his, but finally he saw the door with his own eyes. The blinking lights of the nightly city shimmered behind his back, but he felt wide awake, despite the lowering sounds of night life.

He gulped, the keys trembling in his hands.

For how long did he stay in the Academy, he wondered. Days? Months? Years? He glanced at the mailbox: it was empty. He wondered if anybody missed him.

He sighed, hoping that that would help him relax, and finally opened the door.

A closed scent of dust welcomed his nostrils as soon as he set foot inside what had once been his apartment, at least according to the info he was given. He looked around him, the room bathed in the light of a nearby street lamp, whose light filtered through the curtains, giving off an eerie blue hue to the place. He closed the door behind him, the thud echoing in the silence of the house, while he scanned the place and turned on the lights, some sort of curious reverence in his gaze.

So... that was his home.

At least, where he used to live before deciding to participate in the killing game show.

It was pretty small. Just a bedroom, a small kitchen, and a bathroom. The furniture was neatly placed, but chaos amassed on the floor and on the walls: they were covered in scraps of papers, torn up posters and splatters of what looked like ink. Many pens were laying on the ground, untouched, and Shuichi had to carefully trace his steps midst that mess.

«What... why is this place like this?» he stopped in his tracks, looking at what surrounded him, and added. «I guess... this... this was my doing? I did this?»

He shuddered at the thought. He took one of the cramped papers in his hand, and carefully opened it, fearing that he could break it. They were... notes. He squinted his eyes – the letters were so smudged that they were hard to read – they were notes regarding the killing game?

He gasped, letting the paper fall back on the floor, like a cursed item.

«What is this?!»

He knelt down, desperately opening the papers that littered the floor, in a frantic search of some kind of sense of what he was seeing. Notes on the murders that had occurred in the precedent seasons of the Danganronpa show, notes on the victims, how the murders were plotted and then executed, the murder weapons, the evidence that the players used in order to uncover the truth, methods of executions, different tips and notes that were hastily written on the board of the pages on how to not get caught as the blackened... Shuichi couldn't believe his eyes, his hands were trembling and he felt his breathing getting hoarse, while his eyes were becoming more and more watery, as a sense of dread started to descend upon his being.

The video that Tsumugi had showed them in the last trial... it was true? He... he was planning to be a murderer, when he did the application to be in the show? He looked around him, the posters on the wall depicted different people he had never seen, but one among them caught his attention: Rantaro Amami. They... they were all participants of the previous killing games?

He whimpered, tears starting to fall down on his cheeks, and he knelt down on the floor in a miserable lump of discarded paper and ink: everything felt so unfamiliar, so foreign.

So alone.

That was his apartment.

That's what he had been told.

That was where the old Shuichi Saihara lived, before participating in the game.

That is where he harbored the idea to give up on his life.

That is where he plotted the murders he wanted to execute.

That is where he planned his death.

Shuichi stood up, hands trembling and tears trickling down from his eyes: none of that made sense. How could he, or anybody for that matter, think about doing anything like that?!  
Kaede, Maki, Kaito, Gonta, Kirumi... were their apartments all the same as his?  
Did they also plan their murders, their executions?  
None of that made sense.  
They fought so hard to survive... they fought so hard to keep up hope, when their old selves wished to throw themselves in the arms of despair?  
None of that made sense.  
_None of that made sense._  
Shuichi hoped that what Tsumugi had told them was just a lie, but the proof in the apartment was irrevocable.  
They... they all wished to die in that game.

He limped his way outside, making his way down in the city, staggering his way onto the sidewalk.

He looked down: he wasn't sure if anybody was in the streets or if he was the only one out there. He didn't really care.

He continued to walk, unsure on where to go or what to do. The images of those deadly plans echoed in his mind, a reminder of his former self.

Was that... really him? Of course, he had no recollection of writing those notes. He had no recollection of ever watching the Danganronpa show. But still, in a way, the person who did all of that was him, was he not? He gathered the courage to rise his gaze, looking at the skyscrapers that towered above him, shimmering lights in the darkness, signs of daily lives that were nearing their sleepy ends.

Were they feeling comfortable in their own homes?  
He wondered how many of those people had watched the show, when he was one of the participants.  
He wondered if they cried when Kaede had died.  
He wondered if they cried too, when they all gathered around Himiko and let loose of all their pent up emotions after Angie and Tenko's murders.  
He wondered if he had changed their lives, with his reckless decision in the final trial.  
He wondered what would his past self had done, if he had seen him.

He stopped in the middle of the sidewalk. He let the lights bask on him, reflecting their rays on his tears. The streets were deadly silent, far away cars the only sound he could perceive, the lights above him flickering in the nightly rest of their occupants, and never had he felt so alone.  
He wasn't made for that world. He was created for the Danganronpa show. But there he was, a fictional character in the reality he so wished to escape to. He was supposed to die. To be a writing tool to be disposed of.  
But instead, there he was. He didn't exist before the birth of Shuichi Saihara, the Ultimate Detective. The owner of that apartment... was not him. He had died. He had died the day he was chosen as the new participant in the show.  
And there he was, stuck in a body that had became his own, but in a life that was not his.  
A life that was fictional... that didn't exist.  
They gave him the old apartment, but it was nothing more than an inheritance from a past life that he didn't even own. Shuichi Saihara now inhabited the body of that boy who wanted so desperately to die in the Danganronpa show, a new being with a renewed will to live.  
He looked at his hands, glistening in the golden artificial lights, and took some seconds to appreciate them. They weren't truly his hands, were they? They belonged to the previous owner of the body. The owner of the apartment.  
But there he was, moving them as if they were his own. He looked at the sky above him, the dark canvas without a single star in it, and he wondered what would his old friend say upon gazing on it.

The next day, he returned to the apartment.  
He threw all the papers and posters, threw all the pens and personal items of the old owner: he didn't find any photos or anything that might have pointed out to a family, and Shuichi wondered if he had any at all. He sighed.  
The empty apartment was now so spacious, Shuichi felt a little threatened, as endless new possibilities arised from the act of cleaning. The only thing he left from the old owner was an old photo, depicting himself in front of the window. He wondered in which occasion he thought to take that photo.  
Shuichi felt pity for him. The apartment's old owner didn't seem to have anybody who missed him, but Shuichi did have people who would.  
He took the cellphone he had been given after leaving the show and proceeded to call Maki and Himiko. While making plans with them, he glanced at the photo near the window and, offering it a smile, silently thanked him for this opportunity.


End file.
